“Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, He Who was with you across the Jordon, to Whom you bore witness – look, He is baptising and all are going to Him.’ John answered, ‘A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.’ The One Who has the bride is the Bridegroom. The friend of the Bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, rejoices greatly at the Bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease’” – John 3:30.

AT THIS POINT, John the Baptist recognised that he had fulfilled what he was set apart to do – to prepare the way of the Lord’s coming. There was no begrudging of him stepping out of sight, but a worshipful devotion unto the Lamb of God for the world to behold Him. This is the mark of a true prophet (one who authoritatively expounds and appropriates God’s Word for today’s generation) whose one sole concern and desire is to have the people see and hear none but God Himself and yet how different to so many ‘ministries’ today that are self-exalted.

For many of us, it takes a while to see the beauty of Christ in such way as to be compelled for the world to see no-one but the Son of God Himself; to stoop so low in and of ourselves that others may witness the true glory and wonder of the Saviour. For some it may take moments, for others years, before we die to self-importance. Oftentimes, unbeknown to us, our motives for serving Christ are mingled with so much self that we wonder as to why little fruit is born in our lives. Our personalities and charisma can sometimes be mistaken for the power of God and the one sure evidence of that taking place is when others are enamoured with us instead of Christ, no matter how innocent in nature that may appear. Oswald Chambers’ words remain strikingly clear with conviction to much of what is hailed to be the work of God, particularly through the ministerial office: “Belief in Jesus is a miracle produced only by the efficacy of Redemption, not by impressiveness of speech, not by wooing and winning, but by the sheer unaided power of God. The creative power of the Redemption comes through the preaching of the Gospel, but never because of the personality of the preacher. The real fasting of the preacher is not from food, but rather from eloquence, from impressiveness and exquisite diction, from everything that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God—“as though God did beseech you by us.” He is there to present the Gospel of God, not human ideals. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get anywhere near Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the Gospel will end in making me a traitor to Jesus.”

Another subtle danger in many ministries today carries the common thread which is no different from the world: develop yourself, believe in yourself, have more confidence in yourself which is so contrary to Christ’s call: “Deny yourself, take up your cross and come follow Me.” The world’s mentality is to look within; it is subjectively orientated, while the Christian’s vocation is to look away from self to the exalted Christ.

The hallmark of spiritual maturity is attained when we desire to see Christ glorified in the lives of others at the expense of our own popularity. When we witness the beauty of the Lord, we pale into insignificance; our ambitious pride for notable ministry that enthrones self-importance is undone and the one thing that constrains us is that God be exalted among the nations. Self-elevated ministries have made many churches a den of thieves. In the words of John Hyde, “The stench of self will frighten souls away” and in addition, the sight of self will steal souls away from seeing Christ. Our one mission is to rightly present Jesus Christ to those with whom we come in contact with. We may spurt out our creeds, but unless Christ is seen through our deeds, we are the biggest opponents to genuine Christianity.

Has it caught our attention what Jesus said, when He cleansed the temple, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations…But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17)? As well as all the nations coming to the house of prayer, do we also see it as a place in which to pray for those nations that are still darkened to the Gospel? Are we consumed with lavishly adorning our tabernacles and empires instead of being mission-orientated?  Instead of building a bigger sanctuary that costs millions, don’t you think it’s time to church plant? Instead of having two gigantic screens that you can view from the next ‘state’, spread out to other areas in the city or other regions. You will not find any mega church mentioned in the New Testament – never! They expanded by sending other believers out into other locations to make the Gospel known. They joyfully endured the discomforts and inconveniences for the sake of Christ. Who said mission was easy? Very few know the missionary’s hardship in our day and age.

Frequently accompanying a mission group to Portugal (four years consecutively) in the early 1990’s, never entailed sleeping at a five star hotel like some ‘missionaries’ do today; we either slept on the streets, train platforms or a bare church floor – you can forget about beds, mattresses or pillows. One of the church’s we came alongside to support was in the very midst of a slum area (that is where God lead a pastor and his wife from Brazil to live indefinitely among the people) and it wasn’t uncommon to witness  raw sewage and the odour of it streaming down the narrow alley ways (streets to the inhabitants). Reading the lives of Adoniram Judson, Charles Thomas Studd (known as C.T. Studd) and James Hudson Taylor will reveal that true mission work is not a vacation.

Do we honestly need all the hi-tech resources to ‘enhance’ our meetings? In the name of God, is it appropriate to enhance our sanctuary’s ceiling with extravagant interchangeable mood-lighting that stimulates happy moods as one looks up in ‘worship’? We have got it so wrong in much of our westernised churches. You will find none of this paraphernalia among the suffering churches in Africa, China or the Middle East and yet they spiritually flourish to a degree that would have us hang our heads in shame. We have somehow got it into our heads that we must materially advance in order to appeal to the world. Our being ‘relevant’ to the world is equated to sheer compromise; we have substituted the power of the Gospel with technology’s enchantment. A good dose of being ‘old-fashioned’ where we abandon our props to get down on our faces before God in genuine desperate prayer may indeed replace a form of godliness with the Power that once endued the foundational Church.

The two greatest elements that made the early Church dynamic was the kind of praying directed by the Holy Spirit and a continuation in the apostle’s God-inspired (infallible) teaching. Heaven shook those meetings and everything else inevitably followed suit. ‘Silver and gold’ in abundance they may have lacked but all they had need of was limitlessly supplied to proclaim before the world the Way, the Truth and the Life with power and authority. No amount of money can ever buy that. What they had they gave unto the world fast-bound in sin’s darkness: “In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk [in the light and newness of life].” Before today’s Church is endued with such power, many tables will be overturned and many worldly methods purged from it; there will come a baptism of decreasing in our own strengths and self-manufactured programs if we are to know Christ’s increase among us. Many want the baptism of power but only the few are willing to drink the cup that costs us dearly. There is only one kind of empowering in the New Testament and that’s the power to be witness unto Christ (Acts 1:8) – not build our names, enhance our titles or extend our little empires. “I will build MY Church” Christ said. It is His work; we are merely the ‘gloves’ and as they are lifeless without hands so the body is dead if Christ is not the head.

‘That His name be great among the nations’ is the very motto of Heartcry Missionary Society (founder and missions director – Paul Washer). Such a ministry lives and breathes that statement. They may not appear to look significant in the eyes of the world – or the Church for that matter; they are very obscure in comparison to some other well-known missionary organisations, but I will say this: they are one of the extreme few that are true missionaries at heart. They don’t live on the praise of man or man’s financial provision; God is their provision, encouragement and reward. “The proof that you are on God’s line is that other people never credit you with what comes through you.” – Chambers. The chief end of any Christian ministry is that the Bridegroom’s voice be heard and the vital indication we are in step with God occurs when we can joyfully stay out of sight for others to behold Christ alone – “This is My Son, listen to Him.”